Modern prog rock stars Polyphia have set “BE NOT AFRAID” as the title to their fifth studio album. The virtuosic instrumental outfit have just released a video for the song “POWER IN THE BLOOD” from that opus, which they filmed at the São Francisco da Penitência Church in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Recording sessions in Miami, FL, Los Angeles, CA and Dallas, TX led to the creation of this album, with their soon-to-be tourmate RJ Pasin and Spiro Dussias co-producing alongside the band’s Tim Henson and Scott LePage. Henson himself had the following to say about the creative process on this new outing, which Rise Records will release on October 23rd:
“Instead of going wide on ‘BE NOT AFRAID‘, we went as deep as we could. There are so many layers to pull back. Every time you listen to it, you’ll notice something new. Thematically, it’s by far the most meaningful record we’ve ever made.”
He added:
“The album takes you through the extremes of two different worlds / moods: one being very uplifting and triumphant, the other being spine-chilling and terrifying. There are moments on the record that legitimately scare me when I listen to them.”
LePage said of it:
“We physically can’t make the same album twice. We have a yearning to evolve. It was so much fun to write this one together too – the writing sessions for past Polyphia records typically looked like us gathering our ideas separately first and bringing them to each other second, so we took a different approach with BE NOT AFRAID by treating the sessions like an opportunity to create with everybody in the room first before getting into the separate writing. It was a much more communal approach that led to us having so much fun making it that the fun itself was the magic being captured.”
Henson went on to offer:
“During the making of this record, we went down some pretty dark rabbit holes. We kept coming across things that were so depraved they sounded insane when you said them out loud. Then some of the very things we had been talking about started appearing in documents released to the public. You can read that stuff and feel disgusted, demoralized, and completely powerless.
‘BE NOT AFRAID‘ is our response to that. Rather than allowing the ugliness of the world to paralyze us, we put everything we had into making something beautiful. We weren’t afraid of whether something was too different or whether people were going to understand it. We just followed what excited us and made what I believe is our best record to date.”
“BE NOT AFRAID” track listing:
01 – “LET THERE BE LIGHT“
02 – “WITH EYES TO SEE“
03 – “SCREWTAPE“
04 – “POWER IN THE BLOOD“
05 – “THEY KNOW NOT WHAT THEY DO“
06 – “MARK OF THE BEAST“
07 – “CAN YOU FEEL IT“
08 – “NEAR DEATH“
09 – “J-BOMB“
10 – “DENY THE FLESH“
11 – “DEVIL GET BEHIND ME“
12 – “FEAR GOD“
Pre-orders can be found via polyphia.lnk.to/BENOTAFRAID. The band have also rescheduled their North American headlining tour to early 2027, with the following new dates booked:
With Ladrones & RJ Pasin:
02/05 Phoenix, AZ – Arizona Financial Theatre
02/06 Las Vegas, NV – House of Blues
02/09 Los Angeles, CA – Hollywood Palladium
02/10 San Diego, CA – SOMA (no Ladrones)
02/11 Anaheim, CA – House of Blues
02/14 San Francisco, CA – The Masonic
02/17 Seattle, WA – Paramount Theatre
02/19 Salt Lake City, UT – The Depot
02/20 Denver, CO – The Fillmore Auditorium
02/23 Minneapolis, MN – Uptown Theater
02/24 Milwaukee, WI – Landmark Credit Union Live
02/25 Chicago, IL – Aragon Ballroom
02/26 Indianapolis, IN – Egyptian Room at Old National Centre
02/27 Detroit, MI – The Fillmore Detroit
03/2 Toronto, ON – Great Canadian (feat. Intervals)
03/3 Montreal, QC – L’Olympia (feat. Intervals)
03/5 Philadelphia, PA – The Fillmore Philadelphia
03/6 Brooklyn, NY – Brooklyn Paramount
03/7 Boston, MA – MGM Music Hall at Fenway
03/9 Washington, DC – Echostage
03/10 Raleigh, NC – The Ritz
03/12 Charlotte, NC – The Fillmore Charlotte
03/13 Orlando, FL – Hard Rock Live
03/14 St. Petersburg, FL – Jannus Live
03/16 Atlanta, GA – Coca-Cola Roxy
03/17 Birmingham, AL – Avondale Brewing Company
03/18 Nashville, TN – The Truth
03/20 Dallas, TX – South Side Ballroom
The band said of that:
We poured everything we had into making this album exactly what we wanted it to be. In order to see that vision all the way through, our North American shows will now take place in February/March 2027. We know a lot of you already made plans to come see us, and we don’t take that lightly. Thank you for being patient with us and sticking with us. We genuinely can’t wait for you to hear this record and experience it with us.
Their previously announced European/UK tour with Perturbator & RJ Pasin still stands:
11/18 Zurich, SWI- Halle 622
11/19 Lyon, FRA – Le Radiant
11/20 Toulouse, FRA – Interference
11/22 Barcelona, SPA- Razzmatazz
11/23 Madrid, SPA – Sala La Riviera
11/25 Milan, ITA – Alcatraz
11/27 Munich, GER- Zenith
11/28 Prague, CZE – SaSaZu
11/29 Warsaw, POL – Progresja
11/30 Leipzig, GER- Haus Auensee
12/02 Hamburg, GER- Docks
12/04 Copenhagen, DEN- Amager Bio
12/05 Berlin, GER- Tempodrom
12/06 Oberhausen, GER- Turbinenhalle
12/07 Brussels, BEL – Ancienne Belgique
12/08 Amsterdam, NET – AFAS Live
12/09 Paris, FRA – Zenith Paris
12/11 Birmingham, UK – 02 Academy Birmingham
12/12 Manchester, UK – Manchester Academy
12/15 Leeds, UK – O2 Academy Leeds
12/16 London, UK – O2 Academy Brixton
